FISH AND FISHING. 



IS THE STURGEON A MIGRATORY FISH? 



Glenn's Ferry, Idaho. 



Editor Recreation: Two men were 

 lately arrested here for catching sturgeon 

 in Snake river, at a time forbidden by law. 

 During the trial the contention was raised 

 that our sturgeon is a salt water fish and 

 that it migrates back and forth to and from 

 the sea. 



I should like to have your opinion of this, 

 whether in many cases sturgeon are entire- 

 ly confined to fresh water, as, for instance, 

 the Lake Erie sturgeon. While we have 

 no impassable falls between here and the 

 Pacific ocean, to prevent the sturgeon pass- 

 ing up and down, still the distance is 400 

 to 500 miles, by water; and the sturgeon 

 are always in the river — not like the salmon 

 which only come in the fall of the year. 

 What can you tell us of the natural history 

 of the sturgeon? 



With regard to our Pacific salmon (On- 

 corhynchits tschawytscha) did you ever hear 

 of them being taken with a fly, in the rivers 

 of the Pacific coast? I never heard of them 

 taking a bait of any kind; though why they 

 should not do so, like the Atlantic salmon, 

 I do not know. Is there any book pub- 

 lished that treats of the natural history of 

 the fresh water fish of the Pacific slopes? 



E. S. Craster. 



Professor Barton W. Evermann, Ichthy- 

 ologist of the U. S. Fish Commission, re- 

 plies to these questions as follows: 



The sturgeon found in Snake river is va- 

 riously known as the Columbia river, 

 Sacramento, Oregon, Pacific, or White 

 Sturgeon, or Acipenser transmontanus of 

 the books. It is abundant from Alaska to 

 Monterey and is found far from the sea, 

 in all the larger rivers such as the Sacra- 

 mento, Columbia and Fraser. In the lower 

 portions of these rivers it is undoubtedly 

 migratory, running from salt water into 

 fresh and back again. The principal fishery 

 for this species is in the Columbia river, 

 near its mouth. 



That this same sturgeon is permanently 

 resident in Snake river seems well estab- 

 lished. I have seen it caught at Weiser, 

 Glenns Ferry, Lower Salmon Falls, and 

 Upper Salmon Falls; and from informa- 

 tion obtained at those places, and from my 

 own observations, I have no doubt it is 

 resident there throughout the year. 



This sturgeon is, in its habits, very much 

 like the Great lakes sturgeon, which is 

 more or less migratory in the St. Lawrence 

 river, but permanently resident in all of 

 the Great lakes. 



This is the Lake sturgeon or Red stur- 

 geon, (Acipenser mbicundus). In the St. 

 Lawrence river it may be somewhat mi- 

 gratory, but in the Great Lakes (in each of 



which it occurs) it is necessarily non-mi- 

 gratory. It is also found in the larger 

 rivers of the upper Mississippi Basin and 

 has never been known to run down to salt 

 water. In the Lake of the Woods, on the 

 Northern boundary of Minnesota it is very 

 abundant and constitutes a fishery of vast 

 importance. The sturgeon catch in this 

 lake in 1895 amounted to 2,000,000 pounds. 

 This lake is the principal source of the 

 caviare made in this country, the shipments 

 in 1895 having been 186,699 oounds. 



The salmon which comes into Snake 

 river is the Chinook or Quinnat salmon 

 (Oncorhynchus tschawytscha). At any dis- 

 tance from the sea it rarely or never takes 

 the hook, but in the lower portions of 

 the rivers it is said to do so frequently. 

 Every year a great many salmon are caught 

 in Monterey bay by trolling. The trolling 

 is done from either sail or row boats, with 

 stout lines and hooks attached to rods, or 

 simply fished by hand, sardines being the 

 usual bait. Some fine catches have been 

 made here. The salmon are found in Mon- 

 terey bay from June to September and 

 there is no more delightful place to spend 

 a few days or weeks, if one wants the best 

 of sport with the trolling line. 



At the falls of the Willamette river a good 

 many salmon are caught with baited hook, 

 and occasionally one with the fly. The 

 same is true at the mouth of the Siuslaw 

 river, Oregon. Many Chinook salmon (as 

 well as silver salmon) are taken in Puget 

 sound, in the same ways. 



I have never known a Chinook salmon to 

 take the fly or baited hook, at any great 

 distance from the sea. 



There is no book devoted especially to 

 the ichthyology of the fresh water fishes of 

 the Pacific slope. Various papers have 

 been issued by this Commission, which 

 treat of the fishes of certain special parts 

 of the coast, but no one that covers the 

 whole ground. I have sent Mr. Coaster a 

 series of the reports referred to. 



Barton W. Evermann. 



BAIT VS. FLY FISHING. 



J. W. HUNT. 



_ Again the controversy as to the respec- 

 tive merits of fly and bait fishing starts in. 

 It is in pursuit of that terrier among fishes, 

 the black bass, that the disciples of the 2 

 schools of angling meet; for few real an- 

 glers would ever go after a trout with 

 worms. 



Although not bigoted on the subject, I 

 must relate an experience which seems to 

 me effectually to dispose of the claim ad- 

 vanced by the fly men (no slang intended) 

 that the bait fisher loses half the sport 

 through not seeing the strike. 



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